At the beginning of her Monday morning press conference, President Claudia Sheinbaum read out a statement in response to the protests in Los Angeles against raids carried out by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Later in her mañanera, the president revealed she will travel to Canada next week to attend the G7 Summit, and said she could hold a bilateral meeting with United States President Donald Trump at the event.
Sheinbaum urges peaceful protest and due process after 42 Mexicans detained in Los Angeles ICE raids
Among other issues, Sheinbaum also addressed criticism of the incoming Supreme Court justice and condemned the entry of Mexican police to Guatemala on Sunday,
Sheinbaum to attend G7 Summit in Canada; bilateral meeting with Trump ‘very probable’
Twelve days after she confirmed that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had invited her to the June 15-17 G7 Summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, Sheibaum revealed that she had decided to attend.
She said she would attend the summit on Monday, June 16, for bilateral meetings and June 17 for the G7 “assembly.”
Sheinbaum said that Foreign Affairs Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente is working to arrange bilateral meetings with various presidents and prime ministers, and declared that a meeting with Trump was “very probable.”
Sheinbaum has spoken to Trump by telephone on seven occasions since the U.S. president won the U.S. presidential election last November, but the two leaders have not met face-to-face. Trade, migration and the trafficking of drugs and weapons will likely be among the top items for discussion if they hold in-person talks next week.
Sheinbaum said she would fly on a commercial airline to Canada to attend the G7 Summit.
She said she would have a layover at an unspecified airport, explaining that there are no “direct” flights from Mexico. However, Sheinbaum didn’t say where she intended to fly from and where she planned to arrive in Canada. Kananaskis is located around 120 kilometers west of Calgary.
The trip to Canada will be Sheinbaum’s third international trip since she became president last October. She attended the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Brazil last November, and the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in Honduras in April.
Sheinbaum calls out ‘racism’ and ‘classism’ in criticism of incoming Supreme Court chief justice
Sheinbaum leapt to the defense of Hugo Aguilar Ortiz, an Indigenous lawyer originally from the Mixtec region of Oaxaca and the next chief justice of the Supreme Court, after a reporter suggested it would be difficult to find a “good jurist” among the nine justices elected to Mexico’s top court at the June 1 judicial elections.
“Hugo Aguilar is a good jurist,” she said.
“What’s happening is that there is a lot of racism,” Sheinbaum said, referring to criticism of the Mixtec man who received more votes than any other candidate in the Supreme Court election.
“Classism,” she added.
Aguilar has been criticized for a range of reasons, including that he is allegedly too close to the ruling Morena party. During the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples official played a leading role in the consultation process with Indigenous communities regarding the Maya Train railroad project. The United Nations said in 2019 that the consultation failed to meet all international human rights standards.
‘Not good’ that police from Chiapas entered Guatemala, says Sheinbaum
A reporter asked the president whether members of the federal government’s security cabinet had provided her with a report on whether members of an “immediate reaction” police unit in Chiapas had entered Guatemalan territory as part of efforts to combat criminal groups.
Sheinbaum responded that “everything seems to indicate” that members of the Fuerza de Reacción Inmediata Pakal (Pakal Immediate Reaction Force) did indeed go into Guatemala, which borders the southern state of Chiapas.
The Mexican police reportedly killed four members of an organized crime group during a shootout on Sunday in the Huehuetenango department of Guatemala.
Sheinbaum didn’t refer to the deaths, but said “it’s not good” that Mexican police entered the territory of Guatemala. She frequently asserts that Mexico would never accept any kind of United States intervention in Mexican territory to combat Mexican cartels.
Sheinbaum said that Security Minister Omar García Harfuch would provide “all the information” about the apparent violation of Guatemala’s sovereignty on Tuesday.
The Pakal Immediate Reaction Force, or FRIP, is a special forces police unit created by the current government of Chiapas, which took office last December and is led by Governor Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies ([email protected])
